My legs were very sore on Wednesday. I probably should not have been surprised after Tuesday’s tough run, but I was. Thankfully there were only 8 miles on the program, and I spooled them off without much thought. The weather was pretty bad, and the most difficult part was to open the front door. Once that was achieved, the rest was easy.
Thursday followed pretty much in the same footsteps, but only for 6 miles and sans rain. I got a moment of fright when a bat swooped very close to my face. I see them most mornings, but never quite so close. However, the situation was over before I had even realised what was going on. Still, it made my heart jump for a moment.
Today’s timing was exceptionally bad. I could see the dark rain cloud as soon as I stepped out of the house, and it came as no surprise when it started raining within the first mile. It kept it up until the last mile. As soon as I got back home, the sun appeared. Just my luck, it seems.
The run itself was fine. In previous builds I have always done Pfitzinger’s 3x1 mile workout at this stage. But since I never understood the point of this workout, I decided to do something different for once. Intervals didn’t appeal to me (ok, they never do), and I opted for 2 miles of 100 meters sprint/float. This is supposed to get your legs moving at fast speed without being too taxing. I encountered 2 problems: One, I had programmed the Garmin to beep every 100 meters, but most of the time I could not hear the beeps because of the wind. I had to keep a fairly close eye on the display. The second problem was that I didn’t really know what pace to run for the floats. I tried to just keep the legs turning over at a good rate without pushing hard, but frequently I found myself slowing down significantly at the start of each rest interval.
I did a bit over 2 miles that way. As promised, the legs felt very tired, but the rest of me was fine. Because the workout had been so short I recovered quickly. It’s a nice way to get the legs working without overdoing things, probably just what I needed today.
One more week!
- 2 Sep
- 8 miles, 1:03:11, 7:64 pace, HR 140
- 3 Sep
- 6 miles, 46:16, 7:42, HR 142
- 4 Sep
- 6 miles, 42:46, 7:07 pace, HR 152
incl. 2+ miles with 100/100 sprint/float
Sounds like you know quite well what you need to do during the taper. Good luck in the race!!
ReplyDeleteIt says only 5 days 17 hours to go on your timer.
ReplyDeleteThe 100 sprint/float sounds just as good as the 3 x 1 mile. I think the worst thing you can do is to have no intensity during the taper.
Hope the rest of the week goes well (and the dodgy Irish weather sorts itself out).
Ahh, the work is done and you've certainly worked hard this cycle. Good luck surviving the taper and we'll be cheering you on next weekend. Good luck!
ReplyDelete